One afternoon at a quaint Minneapolis cafe, Cizzy visited with Halloween, Alaska’s James Diers, who expounded upon the band’s latest album, recent successes, and easy listening.

Cizzy: What are some of most significant milestones in your musical career?

James Diers:  The two proper bands that I have played with are the Love Cars (with David King, Halloween, Alaska’s drummer) and then Halloween, Alaska.  I have been doing some DJ’ing on the side, but those are the only two bands that I have ever played with.  I have also been working on many re-mixing projects.  The Twin Cities is a very collaborative community so I am able to work on a lot of different projects, putting on tribute shows and remixing stuff.  And of course, an important milestone for us was having a great show at First Avenue.  It was very satisfying to perform what we recently recorded as well as to have the album completed.

“In Order” (The Remote Age Remix) by: Halloween, Alaska

Cizzy: You made an album in 2004 and another album in 2005 and then, four years later, you released Champagne Downtown. What is different about your latest album?

JD: The biggest difference was all in process (how the music was written and produced).  It was much harder to get together as a band because one of us was either living out of town or one of us was out on tour.  We struggled to get time to work together.  We had to be more methodical about how stuff was recorded.  At some point, we figured out that we could get Tchad Blake at Mongrel Music (Castle Combe) to mix our records after Ev (founding keyboardist/engineer) fazed out of mixing for the band.  The group started out by putting together music as kind of a side project, not to marginalize it, but we were playing with other bands.  And Over time, our band became more lively.

Cizzy: If you needed to calm your nerves, what album or song would you listen to?

JD: There is a really great soundtrack to this film called Solaris.  It is a remake of an older Russian film.  Cliff Martinez made this soundtrack of the score for it.  It is a lovely, mostly electronic but orchestral soundtrack.  It has this moody, impressionist quality that has some calming energy to it.  It isn’t the most calming movie, but the soundtrack is.

“The Hollywood Sign” by: Halloween, Alaska

Links

Halloween, Alaska – Website / Myspace

posted December 1st, 2009 at 4:03 pm Interviews, MN Rock, Reviews Halloween Alaska